


Where The Sea Is The Sky

by flawedamythyst



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Drowning, M/M, Pining, Pirates, Shawarma, Technically Both Clint and Bucky Are Dead But It Doesn't Really Show, Undead Pirates, ghost ship - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 05:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21174260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Clint hadn't ever really thought about what he expected from the afterlife, but an eternity on an old sailing ship with a bunch of assholes was definitely not it.At least one of the assholes was hot enough to be worth looking at for eternity, even if it was pretty clear it was never going to go any further than looking because he was the grumpiest of all the assholes.Damn, he wassohot, though.Written for Mandatory Fun Day's moonlit ship prompt, and my Winterhawk Bingo Square of 'mutual pining'.





	Where The Sea Is The Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Usual huge thanks and indebtedness to Villainny and Kangofu_cb, who are both the best.

Clint thought Bucky might have been one of the crew on the deck of the _Flying Dutchman_ when he had arrived, waking up with a splutter and choking out sea water. He'd been too busy realising he didn't need to breathe anymore, and then coming to terms with being dead, to really pay attention to him though. It hadn't been until later, when Clint had had a chance to get his head around the whole ‘ghost ship of dead sailors’ thing and started to integrate into the rest of the crew, that he realised just how pretty Bucky was. 

God, he was really pretty. 

And not just in comparison to the rest of the crew, because anyone could look good compared to a ship full of drowned sailors, half of whom seemed to have been horribly disfigured even before they became undead or whatever. Clint had no idea how Bucky managed to make being dead look so good, but he seemed to have skipped the vaguely green skin tone that a lot of the others had, and just looked intensely pale. Combined with his dark hair, sharp jawline and pale blue eyes, Clint thought he looked a lot more like a vampire than a zombie. 

Or whatever the fuck they were. Wraiths? Sea ghouls? No one had been particularly forthcoming when he'd asked, "What the fuck?" in increasingly hysterical tones after discovering his lack of a heartbeat.

And then, of course, there was Bucky’s metal arm, which should have made him look at home amongst a crew of scarred dead guys, but it was so sleek and modern that it stood out like a jewel amongst the half-rotten wooden planks and mildewed ropes and sails. Clint could hardly keep his eyes off it, and found himself following around after Bucky like a magpie chasing after something shiny.

It really was _so_ shiny, though. 

No one on the crew needed to sleep any more, but there were still a bunch of hammocks slung up below decks for people to lie in and think about how much they wished they could still sleep. Clint spent more than a few hours down there, daydreaming about all the things that arm could do to him.

Not that it seemed like he was going to get any chance to find out. Bucky spent most of his time silently glaring at anyone who came close to him or standing on the bow staring gloomily at the waves. Clint tried making friends, but all he got back were scowls and monosyllables, which figured. An eternity on a ship with the hottest guy he'd ever seen, of course Bucky wouldn't give him the time of day.

Clint found a place in the rigging where he could perch and get a good view of Bucky's shoulders, and ass, and thighs, and- yeah, all of him. He hung out there whenever he wasn't being kept busy with some bullshit task (The _Flying Dutchman_ was a ghost ship who sailed herself regardless of wind and tide. Why the hell did they need to spend so much time messing about with ropes?) and just hoped Bucky wouldn't notice. 

It never really got light during the day, just a weird half-light as if the sun’s rays were coming to them through a mist. The nights were sometimes brighter, when all the stars were laid out overhead and there was a full moon riding high.

Bucky was stood at the bow as usual, the moonlight casting a silver tone to his skin, and Clint just needed to be somewhere he could watch the sharp line of his jaw and the bulge of his muscles as he leant on the side.

"If yer going ta be spending yer time up high, might as well be look out," growled the third mate at Clint as he was preparing to go up the ratlines.

He was loud enough that Bucky turned to look and Clint cursed to himself, because if Bucky knew he was up there, he'd have to be more careful about ogling him so he wouldn’t get caught.

"Look out for what?" Clint asked. "Rocks we can't run aground on? Land we can't go ashore to?"

The third mate cackled. "Fer sails, boy! Ships we can plunder!"

Clint stared at him. "Plunder? Wait, what?"

The third mate frowned at him. "Of course plunder! Did no one tell ye we're pirates, boy?"

Oh, this just kept getting better and better. How had Clint ended up with this ludicrous afterlife?

"Pirates, okay," said Clint. "And who the hell are we plundering? I thought the living couldn't see us?"

"They can't," put in Bucky, in a rough voice.

The third mate was looking really pissed now. "Don't be making a fuss now, boy," he growled. Clint idly thought about pointing out that he was over forty, or had been when he died, but decided to let it go. God only knew how long the guy had been dead, he could be centuries older than Clint. That would certainly explain his fucked up accent. "We'll find someone. You just get up and keep a look out."

"What would we even plunder?" continued Clint, because the more he thought about it, the stupider it seemed. "Food we can't eat? Money we can't spend?"

"Souls to join us on our eternal voyage!” announced the third mate with far more glee than Clint thought that warranted.

“Why?” he asked again. “We’ve got more than enough crew already.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to point out. “Don't make me report you to the captain," said the third mate with a scowl, and gestured at the rigging again. "Get up!"

Clint had been planning to go up anyway, so he just shrugged at him and headed up. It didn't seem like he was going to have to worry about any actual pirating, at least not for a good long while.

Once he'd made it up to the crow's nest, he looked down to find Bucky staring up at him, dark hair blowing in the breeze around his pale face. Clint took a chance and gave him a wave, but Bucky just turned away, then strode off and went below deck.

Aw, eye candy, no.

Clint sighed and slumped against the mast, staring gloomily at the empty sea. It was going to be a long night.

After that, the third mate started picking on Clint, giving him the worst jobs, sending him up the mast for night watches and forgetting to relieve him and announcing to the rest of the crew that Clint was a coward who was afraid to plunder. Clint tried to explain that he wasn't afraid, he just didn't see the point, but the crew weren't interested. They took the third mate's attitude as a sign to turn on Clint, making him the butt of cruel jokes and casual violence. 

Clint tried to just take it in his stride, but it was hard when he knew there was no escape. This was it now, his existence for the rest of eternity, stuck on a cold, damp, creaking ship, surrounded by assholes with too much free time.

The afterlife sucked.

****

One morning, some asshole stuck his foot out as Clint headed through the mess and he tripped over it, unable to catch himself in time as he headed for a painful collision with the deck.

A hand grabbed him just in time. When Clint had righted himself, he found it belonged to Bucky and couldn't help an incredulous stare.

Wow, he was even prettier this close. Those _eyes_, holy hell.

Bucky's face creased into a scowl. "Be more careful," he snapped, then strode off.

Man, Clint hated to see him leave but he loved to watch him go. All the sailors were in the faded, salt-stained clothes they'd died in, and Bucky had apparently died in tight black leather pants. Completely impractical at sea, but Clint wasn't complaining. 

"Fucking loser," muttered someone nearby, and Clint decided to head straight up on deck rather than hang around the mess. Given they didn't eat, there didn't seem much point anyway.

Bucky was in his usual place at the bow, arms crossed as he glared at the horizon. Clint thought about leaving him alone, and then figured he had nothing left to lose.

"Not sure you can glare the sea into submission but I appreciate your dedication," he said, cheerfully.

Bucky twitched, and then turned the glare on Clint instead. Clint just stretched his grin wider and added, “Hey, thanks for back there, by the way.”

Bucky hunched his shoulders over and looked back at the horizon. “Maybe you should think about fitting in better.”

“With these assholes?” asked Clint. “No thanks.” And then, because it wasn’t even a deathwish if you were already dead, he added, “Wouldn’t mind fitting in with you better, though.”

The look Bucky gave him was startled more than angry, which Clint counted as a win. He hadn’t even got a fist to the face, which he’d been more than half expecting.

Bucky stared at him for long enough that the pause become mildly awkward, so Clint tried waggling his eyebrows at him.

“I don’t-” started Bucky, then broke off with a growl. “Not everything’s a joke, you know,” he said, and then off he went again, stomping down the deck with powerful strides that really drew attention to the strength of his thighs.

Maybe Clint should take a hint from how often their interactions ended with Bucky running off like that.

He sighed and slumped against the side of the boat, looking out at the sea and trying not to think about how old this whole thing was going to get after a century or two.

Hell, it was old now.

There was a faint smudge of land in the distance, but he knew it wouldn’t be getting any closer. Back before he’d pissed everyone off, someone had explained that they were doomed to sail forever without ever reaching the shore. Any time the _Flying Dutchman_ came in sight of land, she’d turn to head away, just taunting them with the vague shape of it.

“Barton!” the third mate yelled from the centre of the ship. “Get down ‘ere! The heads need cleaning!”

There was a scatter of laughter from the other crew on deck, and Clint just about lost it. “Fuck off!” he shouted back. “We’re fucking dead! No one uses the heads!”

The third mate’s eyes lit up as he strode up the deck, and Clint realised he’d walked right into his trap. “Mutiny!” the third mate bellowed. “Someone rouse the captain! We’ve got a mutineer on our hands, lads!”

There was a ragged cheer and someone went running off to the captain’s cabin at the stern as the third mate grabbed the collar of Clint’s jacket and yanked him down the deck to the main mast. “No good slacker!” he roared as they went. “Workshy bastard! Refusin’ to follow the orders of a superior officer! I’ll have yer clapped in irons for this!”

He threw Clint to the deck, where he just lay for a moment, wondering if he could be bothered with this farce, then someone shoved a boot in his ribs and he figured he might as well face it on his feet.

By the time he’d stood up, the captain had arrived, looking furious. Clint hadn’t seen much of him since he’d come on board because he spent most of his time in his cabin, yelling at various of his officers. From the look on his face, he was more than okay with downgrading to yelling at Clint instead.

“This man refused an order!” said the third mate triumphantly. “And, what’s worse, he’s refused to plunder!”

The captain reared up with indignation. “Refused to plunder?!” he repeated. “Bullshit! What kind of a pirate refuses to plunder!”

“I’m not a pirate,” Clint pointed out.

“This is a pirate ship!” the third mate pointed out. “We’re all pirates!”

Clint shrugged. “No one asked me,” he said. “I don’t want to be a pirate.”

There was a shocked gasp from the crowd of crew who had gathered. At least one person spat on the deck in disgust.

“Not a pirate!” repeated the captain, drawing himself up. “Utter crap! Every person on this ship is a pirate, or they wouldn’t be here!”

“Not me,” said Clint. He looked around at the rest of the crew again. “Hey, maybe there was some kinda mix up. Maybe I should be in a different afterlife?”

The afterlife for secret agents had to be better than the one for pirates, right?

The captain made a disgusted noise and reached into his coat, pulling out an actual scroll, which he let drop open. “Clinton Francis Barton,” he announced and, jesus, did he have to pull out the middle name? Several crewmen sniggered. “Drowned while in the act of hijacking a boat.” He turned a glare on Clint. “Classic piracy!”

“Ah,” said Clint, “okay, yeah. Does it mention there that it was a boat belonging to black market arms dealers, and I was intending to hijack it in order to take them into custody?”

There was a long, awkward pause. “You’re law enforcement?” asked the captain, sounding absolutely outraged.

“Yep,” said Clint. “Agent Barton, with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.” Hey, he’d got it right first time. Coulson would have been proud. “We tackle international criminals, espionage, that kinda thing. Does that mean I get to go somewhere else for the rest of eternity?”

The captain growled, rolling the scroll back up and tucking it away. “You lawmen are scum,” he growled, and there was an angry murmur of agreement from the rest of the crew. “You should spend eternity being tormented.”

The angry murmur grew louder and was interspersed with curses. Clint started to get the feeling that this wasn’t actually going to end with him getting to swan off somewhere better.

“I say we do what all good pirates do to scum,” said the captain, looking around the crew, “and make him walk the plank!”

There were cheers.

“What?” said Clint. “That doesn’t- I’m already dead!”

“Yep,” said the captain with an evil smirk. “And now you’re gonna be dead and bobbing about alone in the ocean, while sharks nibble your toes.”

Clint groaned. He really should have just shut up and learned to love being a pirate.

“I’ll go with him,” said someone at the back of the crowd, and a shocked hush fell over them. Clint turned towards the voice, craning to see and, huh. Bucky was stalking through the crowd to stop in front of the captain.

“What?” said the captain. “You’re asking to be made to walk the plank?”

“Yes,” said Bucky, and Clint couldn’t stop staring, but Bucky wasn’t looking back at him. He just fixed the captain with one of his best glares. “I’m not a pirate either.”

The captain groaned. “We went over this. You were the one doing the pirating.”

“I was brainwashed,” said Bucky, stubbornly. “It doesn’t count.”

The captain rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine, if we’re setting up a plank anyway, might as well get rid of both of you fuckers.” He glanced at the third mate. “Want to do the honours?”

The third mate really did. The crew ran a plank out off the side of the ship while the third mate pulled a knife out and used it to poke Bucky and Clint over to it.

“Are yer gonna walk down it like good little lambs, or are yer going to make it difficult?” he asked them. “I’m hoping for difficult.” He poked at Clint again with his knife but given Clint was already dead, it didn’t seem much of a threat.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Come on,” he said to Clint, and grabbed his wrist, then strode down the plank with all the determination he usually reserved for getting away from a conversation. Clint was yanked after him, trying to keep up while not thinking too much about the feel of Bucky’s hand on his wrist.

“Hang on, hang on, let’s not-” he tried.

“No point in waiting,” said Bucky, and jumped off the end, taking Clint with him.

Clint could hear the yells and cheers of the pirates for a couple of long seconds as they fell, then cold water was surrounding him, sucking him down just like it had after the arms dealers’ boat had exploded. He struggled to get back to the surface, striking out blindly with his limbs, but something was dragging him down harder than he could swim up.

He clawed at the grip on his wrist as they plummeted down into dark water, but he couldn’t get it off, and he couldn’t breath, his lungs were-

They were fine, actually.

His head cleared of panic for a split-second, and he remembered that he was already dead. Breathing wasn’t a concern. He opened his eyes and stared at Bucky, who was looking down as they sunk slowly to the bed of the ocean, still clinging on to Clint’s arm. When he realised Clint had stopped struggling, he spared him a glance.

Clint tried out a facial expression that he hoped conveyed, _What the absolute fucking fuck?!_

Bucky just rolled his eyes at him as their feet settled on the bottom. Clint probably deserved that.

Clint shrugged at him, then gestured around them. Was being down here really better than bobbing around on the surface?

Bucky finally let go of Clint’s wrist, which was disappointing, then pointed with great confidence off to the left. Clint turned to look, then glanced back at Bucky when all he could see was weed and fish and water, wow, so much water.

Bucky gave him a firm nod, pointed again, and then set off walking in that direction. Clint sighed as well as he could underwater, then set off after him, because what the hell else was he going to do?

****

They walked for a long time. Clint lost track, because it wasn’t as if they needed to stop to eat or sleep. Instead, they just kept going, ignoring the fish that seemed to have just as little interest in them, climbing up and over underwater ridges and occasionally swimming over deep trenches, which Bucky clearly found tricky with his metal arm. He was too stubborn to let Clint help because of course he was.

Damn, he looked good with his hair floating around him in the ocean currents, though.

Clint didn’t really notice that they had been climbing upwards for a while until the signs of human presence became clearer, rubbish everywhere along with the occasional wreck, and then pipes and strange concrete structures and then, finally, a dock in front of them that Bucky kicked off the ocean floor to float up to.

They grabbed the edge of the dock and pulled themselves out onto dry land, and Clint took a moment to just lie on his back and stare at the sky. Man, he’d missed seeing that.

“What the fuck?” someone nearby exclaimed and he rolled over to see a teenage couple who had been sat on the edge of the dock staring at them, the guy scrambling to his feet.

“Jesus, are you two okay?”

“You can see us?” asked Clint, sitting up and looking down at himself. He still looked like the same water-sodden corpse he’d been since he’d woken up on the _Flying Dutchman_.

“What the fuck?” asked the girl. “Of course we can see you. Jesus, where did you even come from?”

Clint glanced over at Bucky, who was pulling seaweed off his pants with a frown. “Oh, you know,” he said with a shrug, as if that were any kind of answer. He surreptitiously pressed his hand to his chest, just in case…

But nope. Still no heartbeat. Of course not.

“Do you need any help?” the guy asked. “Is there someone I can call for you?”

“We’re fine,” growled Bucky and, wow, Clint had forgotten how sexy that was while they’d been underwater and unable to talk. He gave a little shiver.

Hey, if the living could see them again, maybe Clint could call Natasha. Probably best not to call SHIELD, they might lock him up and do nasty experiments, but Nat would have his back. If he could just remember any of her phone numbers...

“What year is it?” Bucky asked the guy, who blinked at him.

“Uh,” he said, slowly, then glanced around, clearly wondering if this were some kind of prank. “2010? Seriously, what the hell-”

The girl let out a little scream and pointed up at the sky. “What is _that?_” she asked, and Clint followed her gaze to see a black hole opening up in the sky over...huh.

“Is this New York?” he asked, fairly redundantly, just as something started flying out of the wormhole and, holy shit, “Are those aliens?!”

“Seems like,” said Bucky, as the couple did the sensible thing and started running for cover.

Clint groaned. “I just got my head around the zombie thing, why did there have to be aliens as well?”

There was an explosion from where the aliens were touching down, and Clint could hear screams in the distance.

“Hostile aliens,” Bucky added, then glanced at Clint, raising his eyebrows. “Wanna go kick their asses?”

Clint stared at him, then back at the aliens pouring through the wormhole. “You know, I really do,” he said, and they both took off running towards the sounds of gunfire and explosions.

****

A lot happened after that. Clint found Natasha, who was a bit busy fighting aliens to properly freak out about him being dead. Or undead, or whatever the hell he and Bucky were now. She turned out to have made friends with Iron Man, Captain America, a giant green rage monster and the ancient Norse god of thunder at some point, which was wild because Clint had thought Captain America was even deader than he was. Plus, you know, that Thor was a myth.

Captain America had taken one look at Bucky and had some kinda meltdown, sweeping him up into a back-thumping, feelings-laden hug without paying any attention to the hoards of aliens surrounding them. 

“Wait, you’re that Bucky?” asked Clint, but Bucky was too busy dealing with Captain America’s emotions to do more than scowl at him.

Clint just shrugged at him and went back to shooting aliens with the gun he’d stolen from one of them, because he was beginning to think Bucky’s scowls might just be his version of smiling.

The battle went on for a while, until Iron Man flew a nuke into a wormhole and, seriously, being dead was only the tip of the iceberg on how weird Clint’s life was going to be if this kind of thing kept up.

They captured the ringleader, who turned out to be another Norse god so, yeah, the _Flying Dutchman_ thing was really beginning to look tame in comparison, then Tony Stark took them all for shawarma, which would have been nice if Clint could eat it.

“Smells good,” he said enviously as Natasha tucked in.

“So, wait, you’re seriously dead?” asked Tony. “C’mon, no way.”

Clint raised an eyebrow at him, then directed pointed looks at Captain America and Thor.

Tony slumped. “Yeah, okay, but...ah, fuck it. I’m too tired for astounding revelations right now, it’ll have to be tomorrow.”

“Sure thing,” said Clint. “Just let me know, and I’ll come over and astound you.” He threw in a wink, because he was pretty sure Tony Stark was exactly the kind of guy you could flirt with without it having to mean anything.

Tony snorted and turned back to his food as if he were too tired for a comeback, which was probably fair, given he’d died and come back to life a couple of hours ago.

Damn, Clint wished he’d been able to come back to life that easily.

He glanced over at Bucky and found him glaring at him, and not in the usual way that meant his face had just defaulted to rage, but in the way that meant he was actually pissed.

Clint wondered when he’d learnt the difference.

“You going to go with Cap to SHIELD, then?” he asked, because they should probably make plans for being undead guys in New York.

“Nope,” snapped Bucky. “Half of SHIELD is Hydra.”

“Wait, what?” said Natasha, tearing her fixed attention away from her food.

Bucky just pushed his chair back and stood up. “Getting some air,” he said, aiming it mostly at Cap, who was also staring at him now.

Bucky strode out of the restaurant and Clint thought that he was really sick of the guy running off all the time. In fact…

He stood up at the same time as Cap did.

Clint waved at his food. “I got this,” he said. “You stay and eat, I’ll get him sorted.”

Cap hesitated, clearly torn between never letting Bucky out of his sight again and staying where the food was.

“It’s cool,” added Clint, “I’ll bring him back,” he added, as if he had any idea how to do that, then he headed out after Bucky.

Bucky hadn’t gone far. He was just outside, sitting on some rubble and glaring down at a scorch mark on the ground as if it had talked shit about his mother.

“Hey man,” said Clint, but Bucky didn’t look up, he just slumped over further.

“You don’t need to go running after me every time,” he said.

Clint considered that. “Yeah, okay, but look at it like this. Me and you, we’re the only undead former zombie pirates around. That’s the kind of shared life experience you can’t replicate. And I get that you find me super annoying, but we should probably still at least stay in touch, even if you don’t want us to stick together.”

Bucky’s head came up. “I don’t find you annoying.”

Clint laughed. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Sure, that’s why we have such long, rich conversations, and why you always look so happy to see me, and definitely why you never storm off to get away from me.”

Bucky’s scowl darkened. “I don’t find you annoying,” he insisted. “I’m just not good at talking. Not anymore.”

Clint shrugged. “Okay, sure,” he said, because he had a lot of experience with people who found him annoying, so he knew what it looked like. “Either way, we should-”

“I don’t find you annoying,” repeated Bucky, and he stood up, crossing his arms. “If I thought you were annoying, why the hell would I walk the plank with you?”

Clint shrugged, because even after days of thinking it over while trudging over underwater landscape, he hadn’t been able to work out Bucky’s motivation for that one. “Those guys were kinda dicks. I guess you just took your chance and ran with it. And it worked out pretty well.” He gestured at the city around them. 

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Sure, they were dicks, but I’m used to being held captive with a bunch of dicks bossing me about. That’s not why I jumped.”

“Because you knew New York was close enough for us to get to?” guessed Clint.

“I had no idea this was New York,” said Bucky. “I didn’t even know we’d be able to walk like that, I just took a gamble.”

Clint stared at him. “Seriously? You seemed so confident!”

Bucky shrugged. “I was confident I didn't want to stay on that ship without you,” he said, and then his belligerent posture slipped, revealing hesitation underneath. “I knew you were the best thing I’d seen in seventy years, and I wasn’t gonna let you just slip through my fingers.”

Clint stared at him. Bucky stared back, jaw clenching and his fingers twitching with nerves.

“Best thing?” repeated Clint in a croaked voice. “You hate me! You run away and you glare a lot and you don’t manage two words together without insulting me, and-”

“I told you,” interrupted Bucky. “I’m no good at talking.” He let out a frustrated noise. “I used to be, but now…” He gave a helpless shift of his shoulders. “I just come out with the wrong thing, or my brain goes all static. I never know what to say to you.”

Clint was finding this a lot to get his head around. “Because you like me,” he said, just to clarify he wasn’t getting this all wrong, somehow.

“Yeah,” said Bucky with a jerky nod, and now Clint was looking, he could see all the lines of tension that he’d assumed were suppressed rage running through him as he shifted awkwardly on his feet. “Doesn’t mean you can’t go flirting with Stark or whoever, though. I’m not gonna be weird.”

Clint blinked at him. “Are you kidding?” he asked. “The only person I’m gonna be flirting with is you.” He considered that, and then added, out of a sense of fairness, “Well, flirting and mean it, sometimes shit just comes out of my mouth without me really paying attention.”

“You want to flirt with me?” asked Bucky, looking blown away.

“Yeah,” said Clint. “I mean, I’ve kinda been trying to this whole time, I’m just not great at it when I’m so distracted by your face, and your shoulders and your _thighs_, man-”

He didn’t get any further, because Bucky used his determined power walk to close the distance between them this time rather than to escape, then grabbed Clint’s face and pulled him in for a long, deep kiss.

It tasted salty. Clint wasn’t sure why he’d expected anything different.

“Hey, are you- Oh,” said a voice behind them, which Clint merrily ignored in favour of wrapping his arms around Bucky and pulling him in closer. Oh god, he could feel all those delicious muscles pressed up against him.

“Okay, well, we were going to head back to the tower,” carried on the voice, which Clint identified as Captain America’s. Given he was now making out with the guy’s childhood best friend, he should probably start calling him Steve. “Tony said he probably had enough rooms that haven’t been destroyed for everyone, if you want somewhere to sleep?”

Bucky pulled back from Clint’s lips just enough to say, “We don’t sleep,” then dove back in for another kiss.

Clint tore himself away, putting a hand between them when Bucky tried to follow. “Bet we can find something else to do with a bed, though,” he pointed out, and Bucky blinked and then smiled and, holy hell, that was the most beautiful thing Clint had ever seen.

“No hammocks,” said Bucky, as if just realising it for the first time. “No shared quarters.”

Clint grinned at him. “A shower,” he pointed out. “No more salt everywhere.”

Bucky shrugged. “I’m kinda growing to like the salt,” he said, and went back in for another kiss.

Which turned out to be a good thing, because apparently no matter how much time the undead wraiths of the drowned spent in Tony Stark’s super-fancy shower, soaping each other up with every over-priced bottle of shower gel they could find, they still tasted like salt at the end of it.

Eh, a small price to pay, thought Clint as he tumbled Bucky back onto the bed, stroking a hand through his damp hair and then leaning in to press a kiss to his throat, right where a pulse had once throbbed.

“I think I finally found something I want to plunder,” he muttered, pressing his body against Bucky’s and shuddering at the sensation of all that skin.

Bucky groaned and rolled them over so he was braced above Clint. “That was fucking terrible.”

Clint grinned at him unrepentantly, and waggled his eyebrows. “C’mon, swash my buckles. Shiver my timbers. Brace my yar-” He didn’t get to finish before Bucky had shut him up with a hard kiss, but that was okay. Clint had a bunch of them saved up for later.


End file.
